Everything was sliding away from me, my relationship with my husband and even with my son, but I didn’t know what to do or how to stop it. Life was out of my control and I felt utterly powerless.
The years passed and Tony and I continued to operate within our own little worlds. I was back at work and functioning but not feeling anything in particular. I managed to pull myself together enough to arrange a party for Mark’s 21st. I wanted it to be a special time for him. We’d spent the past two years grieving for Colette and sometimes I felt as if Mark had been forgotten. It wasn’t intentional; with the ongoing police investigation, it was just so exhausting and hard to manage to put time aside for our home life and all that it entailed.
Up until now, I’d put all my energies into trying to help the police catch Colette’s killer. But we had nothing. No new leads. It was as though the whole investigation had ground to a halt.
Now it was Mark’s time. We booked the local church hall and invited 250 people to the party. It was a tall order but I insisted on catering for everyone and doing all the table decorations. We also paid to have a bar in there, organised through the local pub. It was a thank you to everyone who had supported us through this dark time in our lives. We invited everyone: Mark’s friends, Colette’s friends, family and even the police officers involved in the investigation.
It felt strange to hold a celebration, but I had to think about Mark. He’d been through as much as, if not more than, the rest of us, as he’d seen Colette’s body lying in the field that day. I think that, to a certain degree, Mark had felt neglected and somewhat pushed out. This wasn’t intentional on my part and I was the last thing I wanted. It had just happened. I loved my son dearly but felt that everything had been against him, so I really wanted to give him a big party – a huge celebration for his 21st.
It was a busy night. The hall was packed and Mark was having a great time. Some of his friends arrived and, unbeknown to us, they had practised a routine from the TV – a strip dance where the men had concealed themselves using balloons. But, instead of balloons, Mark’s friends were using paper plates to hide their manhood.
‘Oh my God, they’ve taken their clothes off!’ I screamed in disbelief from the back of the hall.
Soon we all began to dissolve into laughter. My mum looked back at me in astonishment and then back at the stage full of now naked cavorting male dancers.
‘Well, at least our Mark’s not up there!’ she tutted disapprovingly. Her disgust at the unfolding strip show made me laugh even more.
It was hilarious to watch and for a moment I quite forgot myself. For the first time in years, I began to laugh until joyful tears poured down my cheeks. It was good to feel this way once more.
My brother Michael had come up from Bristol with my nephews and nieces. In the aftermath and during the midst of Colette’s murder, his eldest son Neil had been diagnosed with spinal cancer. He was only 12, and he had been in the middle of his treatment. He had lost his hair and was wearing a baseball cap. It was good to see the family, Neil in particular. For the first time in two years, he looked so well and was almost fighting fit again. That time was the turning point for Neil. He’d been diagnosed with cancer just a month after Colette had been murdered, so it had been a long and arduous journey for all the family.
We’d visited Neil in hospital down in Bristol. At that time, he had been undergoing lumbar punctures and tests, so to see him so well standing at Mark’s party felt so positive. At least there had been one survivor from these dark times. Neil was living proof that life went on. Although I was still grieving for my Colette, there was a glimmer of hope burning bright in his life. He was and still is a true survivor.
It was so good to see my son having such a good time and enjoying himself with his friends. Little did I know what was around the corner.
Shortly afterwards, just weeks later, I returned home from work one day to find Mark missing. He was nowhere to be seen and neither was Zara, his old English sheepdog.
I turned to Tony, who was standing in the kitchen. ‘Where’s the dog?’ I asked him.
‘She’s gone,’ Tony replied.
‘Gone where?’
‘She’s gone with Mark,’ Tony said, barely able to look me in the eye.
‘Gone with Mark where?’ I said, as if we were playing some pathetic guessing game. ‘Have they gone for a walk?’
‘No,’ Tony said, ‘they’ve gone.’
I shook my head in disbelief. ‘What do you mean?’
Tony looked up at me, this time he stared me directly in the eye. ‘They’ve moved out,’ he said loudly, as if to press home the point.
I shook my head. I didn’t want to hear this. ‘Where have they gone?’ I gasped.
‘They’ve gone to live at my dad’s house.’
I was confused. ‘But why would they do that? Why didn’t you tell me? You must have known he was going.’
Then I recalled all the recent whispered conversations between them in the kitchen and suddenly everything made sense. I was getting angry now, and raised my voice.
‘Why didn’t you tell me, Tony?’
‘Why should I have?’
‘Because he’s my son too. Why couldn’t you tell me?’
‘Like I said, why should I? Anyway, you seem to have forgotten you have a son.’
His words cut right through me like a knife. How could my husband know about this and not tell me? Things were worse than I thought.
‘OK,’ I sighed. ‘I’ll tell you what; if this is how it’s going to be, then I think it’s best if we call it a day.’
Tony looked at me.
‘I want a divorce,’ I said finally, the words nearly catching in my throat.
Everything had contributed to this pivotal moment; the ongoing investigation, the police leads that led nowhere, Mark moving out, being forced to exist solely in each other’s company for the first time in 21 years. It all had an effect. No one was to blame.
The doctor had been right. Most marriages crumble under this kind of strain and ours had. I’d always thought I had such a strong, robust marriage, one that could survive almost anything. But it couldn’t survive the fallout from our daughter’s murder. We couldn’t get through it together. Instead, we drifted further and further apart until there was no point in even trying to fight it any more. The deep love had been replaced by petty misgivings and misunderstandings. With no one else to blame, we had directed our anger and frustration at one another. We’d slowly destroyed ourselves and the love that we’d once held for one another. It had died and been buried along with Colette.
Tony and I agreed to separate. Still, we agreed to live together until the house was sold. I continued to do all the cooking, cleaning and washing. We lived like this for five months. It was as though I acted out my part as the dutiful wife, but we were in the midst of a divorce. My solicitor was horrified that I was still doing domestic chores for Tony. Since we were still living under the same roof, I didn’t really see what choice I had. It was a very difficult time.
Once Mark had gone, there was little point in our staying together anyway. He had been the glue in our relationship following Colette’s death. But, with our son away, there was nothing holding us together any more. If he’d still been at home, I truly believe that Tony and I would have stayed together. And, if Colette hadn’t been murdered, perhaps we’d still be happily married today. Who knows?
It all put a strain on my entire life, so much so that I began to suffer other recurring nightmares. They felt so real that I was certain that, if I reached out, I would be able to touch them. One nightmare replaced another.
My latest dream featured a carnival parade of clowns with smiles as false as the greasepaint used to daub them on. They looked happy but in a twisted way. The atmosphere was buoyant as the carnival wound down one of Nottingham’s busiest main roads. The crowd was cheering and clapping along to the music, but I felt isolated and alone – I was stuck at the back unable to see what was passing
in the centre.
Men dressed in finery marched alongside the dancing parade. They called through heavy black megaphones to jolly up the swelling crowd. I pushed my way to the front between the packed lines of people so I could see what everyone was looking at. I felt the breath catch in my throat as I spotted it – a brightly coloured coffin, painted all the colours of the rainbow, was nestled right in the centre. I wondered why they would choose to have a celebration alongside a coffin, a death. The coffin was small and wooden, just like Colette’s had been, and it was smothered in flowers. Roses and carnations were strewn on top in a huge pile; their strong, familiar scent filled the air and my nostrils. The aroma was overpowering. Suddenly, the performers began to shout as they clapped and danced alongside the coffin.
‘She was too young to die,’ they jeered in unison.
The men with the megaphones faced me and I felt all eyes turn towards me as they continued: ‘Yes, she was too young to die; it should have been your turn!’
The whole crowd looked over at me and began to laugh, holler and clap as the men pointed at me with accusing fingers: ‘She’s to blame,’ they yelled, louder and louder.
A wall of voices joined in shouting the same thing; soon their words rose above the music and the noise of the carnival. ‘She’s to blame, she’s to blame.’ Everyone sang it over and over again like a sick choir.
At this point I’d wake up, soaked in sweat. The dreams always seemed so real; I never realised it was just a nightmare until that moment of waking. I soon learned that, during times of crisis and severe stress, the mind can play wicked tricks, and mine was regularly doing just that. I was exhausted with guilt, stress and lack of sleep. In short, almost two years later, I was still blaming myself – punishing myself for Colette’s murder. I felt as if I was going slowly mad. I needed a fresh start away from the chaos that had become my life.
With the family home up for sale, I put in an offer on a lovely little Georgian townhouse in Arnold, Nottingham. I was delighted when my offer was accepted, and I’d received my settlement from the sale of our old house. I took quite a bit of furniture from the house because Tony had bought a mobile home in Tollerton, a village outside Nottingham, which was already furnished. I had to move in with my mum for the first six weeks until the sale was complete. Once it was, I bought new carpets and a three-piece suite for my new home.
But Mum couldn’t understand why I was going to such expense. ‘Why are you buying all this?’ she asked me one day.
‘It needs to be as I want it. Once I’m in there and living on my own, I’ll probably never be able to afford to do it again, so I might as well do it properly and get it right from the start.’
I felt torn leaving the old family home. We’d lived there for over ten years and had moved into it when Colette had been just eight years old. Tony and I had bought the house from the builder, who had built two properties. We lived in one and Jan, the manageress from the salon, lived in the other. It had felt like we were surrounded by family. I hated moving out because somehow it felt as if I was leaving Colette behind, all on her own. The constant smell of carnations in the hallway and my meeting with Doris Stokes had convinced me Colette was there. Even so, I also knew that for my sanity I couldn’t go on with things the way they were. In the end, I told myself that Colette would have understood.
But it didn’t make clearing out her old bedroom any easier. I gave my mum her bed for her spare room. I’d already given all her clothes away to charity but I kept all of the dancing medals and diplomas that she’d proudly won, one after the other. Along with her trinkets and some of her favourite childhood fluffy toys, Colette’s personal things stayed with me for safe keeping. They remain so to this day.
It was May 1985, and I’d been living at my lovely new home for just a few weeks. By this time, I’d returned to Debenhams to work for the French skincare company Guerlain, and I was trying to rebuild my life as it had been when I was happy.
I’d had an answer machine fitted to the home phone as a precaution to field my calls as I’d had a few silent phone calls when I’d been on my own alone at night. When I came home from work this particular evening at 6.30pm, the phone line was open and I knew someone was there on the other end of the line but no one spoke. The red light on top of the answer machine was also bleeping to say there were two or three messages waiting to be heard but, when I switched it on, there was nobody there.
Oh, God, I thought, not again.
The phone calls lasted a couple of minutes each before the caller would hang up and dial again to do exactly the same thing. It was nothing like back in Keyworth where the crank calls were constant. But it was frightening to think that someone had traced me to my new house and got hold of my private telephone number to stalk me all over again. The phone calls lasted for a couple of months but I didn’t report it to the police as I thought they would think I was being paranoid. I was concerned that they would form a false opinion of me and that, when I needed them to take me seriously, they would not. So instead, I suffered in silence.
I also got the same old feeling that someone was watching the house. The property was secured by a big fence which ran all the way around the back. But I still didn’t feel safe.
I confided in Mum. I felt really unnerved – other than close friends and family, no one really knew where I had moved to. How had a stranger found me? It crossed my mind that someone could have followed me home from work.
The feeling of being watched lasted the whole time I lived at that house. But who was it? Was it Colette’s killer watching for clues about where the inquiry was at? Or was he just biding his time, waiting for the case to go cold and for me to go slowly insane with grief?
CHAPTER 6
THE CASE GOES COLD
The investigation rumbled on. The police continued to follow – and exhaust – all major leads but, with the arrival of the 1984 miners’ strike, Colette’s case seemed to fizzle out.
Valuable resources were needed elsewhere, as regular police officers had to keep public order as Britain began to erupt with one of the longest and most bitter strikes this country has ever seen. Soon the headlines were full of striking miners, wives on picket lines and families left without a vital income. People were going hungry.
The papers were full of the latest news from Nottingham and Yorkshire, and soon my worst fears were confirmed: the ongoing murder inquiry wasn’t making the front pages any more. It seemed as though everyone had forgotten about my daughter. They hadn’t of course; there was still a team of dedicated detectives working round the clock trying to solve Colette’s murder. But the strike had a big impact on resources and finances and this affected funds. As a result, the inquiry was downsized 18 months or so after Colette’s murder.
As with all murder inquiries, the case is never cold. But the striking miners and their families had knocked Colette’s face and murder appeal clean off the front pages of the papers and from the top of the news bulletins. To me, it appeared as though Colette’s killer had slipped through the net. He had got away with murder. We still had a big gaping hole in our lives. Everyone else had simply moved on, but how could we?
By then, my brother Michael had qualified as a police officer and moved down south with his wife and children. Yet the shortage of officers was so critical that he was drafted hundreds of miles back up to his native Nottinghamshire to man the picket lines and stop trouble and violence flaring up in the small mining communities which peppered the county.
Michael told me he’d been drafted to Ollerton. I could hardly believe it. Ollerton was just a stone’s throw from where I was living. I thought – from a selfish point of view – how nice it would be to have my younger but strong and dependable brother so close. I knew he would offer me support; I was four years older than Michael but he was a tower of strength to me in the early days and continued to be throughout the rest of my life.
Even though I was happy that Michael was close by, drafting officers from police forces all
over the country cost a fortune. Money that could have been put to good use paying for police overtime to help catch Colette’s killer was being haemorrhaged to bring order to the picket lines. Not that I blamed the miners. I had every sympathy towards them and their cause – fighting for their own kind of justice – just a different kind of justice to mine. I saw the strike from both sides.
Was Colette’s case going to be left forgotten forever? Would this mean, as her killer had so callously boasted in his Ripper-style letter, that they would never catch him? Would this sadistic evil monster be free to roam the streets and possibly kill again because the police had had their attention diverted to a national strike? Would Colette’s killer be sitting in his lair silently laughing at us all, safe in the knowledge that he’d got away with murder?
I thought about it all the time. The police came to visit regularly, but each time they seemed to have less and less to tell me.
‘He’s going to get away with this, isn’t he?’ I asked, my face filled with anguish. I looked the detective square in the eye.
He shifted uneasily in his chair in my front room. Colette’s face stared at him from photographs mounted in frames on the mantelpiece – a constant reminder of the young life that had been snuffed out by a single act of evil.
Justice for Colette: My daughter was murdered - I never gave up hope of her killer being found. He was finally caught after 26 years Page 11
